The Media, Mapping and the U.S.Election - Just Plain Boring

By
Joe Francica

With apologies to our European, Asia Pacific, and other
international readers, I must comment on the mapping technology used by
the TV network media in our US presidential election coverage.Let me sum
it up this way: BORING!

Come on, the technology the major TV networks purchased were far more
sophisticated and capable of delivering more insightful spatial statistics
than what was presented.CBS,
CNN,
FOX,
NBC,
and ABC displayed elementary, if not
crude mapping technology and fell well short of my expectations.Not that
what they had was crude...they had the tools; they just didn't use them to
their fullest potential.

In on-air coverage, CNN and FOX had the usual state-by-state, red vs.
blue standard (boring) maps; CBS had Dan Rather in front of this monitor
using his beloved pencil again (seen it before...boring), and the depiction
of the US map on the ice rink in front of 30 Rock by NBC left me cold.

CNN did attempt some additional analysis by using SpatiaLogic's
technology, but again, they did not use it to its full potential.Instead,
they could have pulled out a copy Strategic Mapping's Atlas Graphics software
running in DOS from the 1980's to do the same thing.At one point, Bill
Hemmer was examining the hotly contested state of Ohio and was discussing
the results at the county level.Well, do tell, that was surely
high-tech, wasn't it.CBS
and ESRI had issued a press release regarding their use of mapping
technology but I did not see evidence of it.Perhaps I missed it and if
anyone saw it differently, please let me know.

I kept yelling at the screen for them to zoom in to the precinct level
and show me a psychographic profile of why this particular demographic
segment was influencing the voting patterns.Show me the detail of just
how many white collar vs.blue collar workers live in that zip code; show
me the breakdown by ethnic lines to understand how those segments of the
populace were trending toward which candidate.Show me where the candidates
were stumping the weeks before the election, by city, and correlate that
to how the electorate voted.Now that's the kind analysis I expect to see
given what I know, and you know, of how the technology can work.Really,
that's just basic GIS analysis, and perhaps that's just about all the average
viewer could appreciate.But given the demographic profile of a cable network
subscriber who was watching the coverage, I suspect that they could handle
the technological ingenuity that our cadre of software providers have provided
these supposedly tech savvy media companies.

It was disappointing to say the least.And what was worse, the networks'
touted the use of mapping technology as an incredible breakthrough for
news coverage.Yes, it certainly would have been if they had read the user
manuals.Could they have gone into less detail? In my mind, don't tout
the fact that you are using maps and then fail to exercise the real power
of the technology.The news media makes themselves out to be technology
wizards, especially in visualization, but this was a clear indication that
they don't understand how to leverage the technology to truly analyze the
demographics that they so often look to in capturing the electoral trends.

Let's look at some of the examples provided by the online resources
of the TV networks:

Print media's online resources faired much better in my opinion.Thankfully,
our good friend at USA Today, Paul Overberg, Database Editor and ESRI user,
was working overtime to update their website every fifteen minutes during
the night, and held up the flag for print media.See below:

USA Today: Mouse over reveals percent of voters and popular vote

So, in summary..note to the mainstream media....take a course in mapping
sometime during the next four years.